Intervener seeks review of judgment, terms letting her off ‘miscarriage of justice’

Alleging that there has been manifest wrong and miscarriage of justice in letting off the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, in the disproportionate assets case, an intervener has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking review of the judgment.

In a major relief to Ms. Mayawati, the Supreme Court on July 6 had quashed the First Information Report registered against her by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that she acquired assets beyond her known sources of income.

CBI faces flak

The court had said: “The impugned FIR is without jurisdiction and any investigation pursuant thereto is illegal. After reading all the orders of this Court, we are satisfied that this Court being the ultimate custodian of the fundamental rights did not issue any direction to the CBI to conduct a roving inquiry into the assets of the petitioner commencing from 1995 to 2003 even though the Taj Heritage Corridor Project was conceived only in July 2002 and an amount of Rs. 17 crore was released in August/September, 2002.”

According to the court, the method adopted by the CBI was unwarranted and without jurisdiction. It criticised the CBI saying: “We are also satisfied that the CBI has proceeded without proper understanding of various orders passed by this Court. We are also satisfied that there was no such direction relating to second FIR [relating to disproportionate assets], dated 05.10.2003.”

‘Error in judgment’

Kamlesh Verma, through his counsel Kamini Jaiswal, filed a petition on Saturday for review of this judgment on the ground of “error apparent on the face of record, because substantial questions of law and compelling facts escaped notice and consideration of this Court, whereby manifest wrong has been done causing irreparable injury and loss to the rule of law and grave miscarriage of justice.”

The petitioner said: “The court has failed to perform its duty as the protector and preserver of the Constitution and upholder of rule of law by quashing the FIR against Ms. Mayawati. Further the judgment under review belies the requirement of public policy that cases of corruption by public servants cannot be dealt with by Courts with a technical approach. Rather, public policy required that even if there was some technical flaw in the investigation, the same could not have been given precedence over the overwhelming evidence collected by the CBI against Ms. Mayawati.

“When there was overwhelming evidence, this Court could not have simply let the accused go scot-free, thus, rendering, the evidence nothing more than bundles of waste paper.”

The petitioner said the Court in its order had clearly said: “The CBI shall take appropriate steps for holding investigation against the [then] Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati and others.”

On the finding that the CBI could not have registered FIR when there was no order to that effect, he said: “Investigations could not be undertaken by the CBI without registration of FIR.”

At last, good sense has dawned upon at least on one public spirited individual to take up the issue again in the Apex court. When the FIR relating to the disproportionate assets case against Ms.Mayawati was quashed by the Supreme court purely on technical grounds, there were expressions of palpable surprise over the correctness and soundness of the judgment in many quarters, even while the sound and fury against corruption in the country is refusing to die down. The Hindu also had rightly carried out an objective editorial 'Everything is Maya' on 6th July followed by an importantLead article on the issue 'The journey of a First Information Report' by N.K.Singh, the former Jt.director of the CBI on17th July this year extensively containing opinion on the error apparent on the face of the judgment on this sensitive issue involving elements of public interest. The political class, more so the UPA dispensation, displayed studied but pretentious silence when the judgment was delivered for reasons of establishing the political remarriage of convenience with Ms. Mayawati and her BSP. One hopes, the case is argued to its logical end and that the petitioner is neither influenced nor pressurized to draw his feet back.

from:
Chandran Dharmalingam

Posted on: Aug 5, 2012 at 03:28 IST

Every body knows that she has a lot of BLCKMONEY
but our judicial system isblind.as shown in the Statue put behind the judge.WE know ,she is DAULAT KI BETI.BUT is always called dalit.In such cases Govt. itself does not want one to be punished because all will be behind bars.